I received an email (hat tip and thanks: M.B.) about the launch of JobCentral.com, the new employment site by former Monster founder, William (Bill) Warren. A few things of note:
1. Warren is leveraging an association named DirectEmployers (it’s unclear exactly what this is, but it sounds like an Employer’s co-operative) along with NACELink (a co-operative of colleges) to fuel his listings database. As classified listings are further commoditized, we’re likely to see more and more new/emerging marketplaces use listings from aggregators to break the chicken-and-egg problem of obtaining market liquidity. LinkedIn‘s original job launch, and, jobs.clusty.com (in conjunction with Indeed.com) are relatively recent examples that spring to mind.
2. New listings are $25.00 each (yep, Warren’s competing on price, his only obvious early advantage), or as the press release says, “90% below” prevailing rates. Obviously these are tough economics to compete against for existing major players who’ve structured their organizations around higher price points… namely CareerBuilder, who not so long ago agreed to 4 and 5 year deals with AOL and MSN (MSFT), respectively (at ~$30MM/yr each).
Is a Perfect Storm brewing in employment classifieds? My magic eightball says “ask again soon”.